Popular passages

Page 37 - ... whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.

Page 9 - He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.

Page 24 - The inference which follows may be disagreeable, but it is not to be escaped. In becoming responsible for the subordination of the individual to the demand of a dominant and constructive national purpose, the American state will in effect be making itself responsible for a morally and socially desirable distribution of wealth. The consequences, then, of converting our American national destiny into a national purpose are beginning to be revolutionary. When the Promise of American life is conceived...

Page 473 - This book is a preservation photocopy. It was produced on Hammermill Laser Print natural white, a 60 # book weight acid-free archival paper which meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (permanence of paper) Preservation photocopying and binding by Acme Bookbinding Charlestown, Massachusetts CD 1995 The borrower must return this item on or before the last date stamped below.

Page 8 - What then is the American, this new man ? He is either an European, or the descendant of an European, hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations.

Page 9 - Wives and children, who before in vain demanded of him a morsel of bread, now, fat and frolicsome, gladly help their father to clear those fields whence exuberant crops are to arise to feed and to clothe them all; without any part being claimed, either by a despotic prince, a rich abbot, or a mighty lord.

Page 469 - This work will be invaluable . . . to the American citizen who wishes something more than a superficial knowledge of the political system under which he lives and of the differences between it and those of other countries. . . . The fact is that no writer has ever attempted to present so comprehensive an account of our political system, founded upon such length of observation, enriched with so great a mass of detail, and so thoroughly practical in its character. . . . We have here a storehouse of...

Page 469 - ... knowledge. There is nothing like it anywhere extant, nothing that approaches it. ... Without exaggeration it may be called the most considerable and gratifying tribute that has yet been bestowed upon us by an Englishman, and perhaps by even England herself. . . . One despairs in an attempt to give, in a single newspaper article, an adequate account of a work so infused with knowledge and sparkling with suggestion. . . . Every thoughtful American will read it and will long hold in grateful remembrance...

Page 91 - ... not superficially differ from that of his associates, he was in point of fact using every chance which the material of Western life afforded to discipline and inform his mind. These materials were not very abundant; and in the use which he proceeded to make of them Lincoln had no assistance, either from a sound tradition or from a better educated master. On the contrary, as the history of the times shows, there was every temptation for a man with a strong intellectual bent to be betrayed into...

Page 279 - There comes a time in the history of every nation, when its independence of spirit vanishes, unless it emancipates itself in some measure from its traditional illusions; and that time is fast approaching for the American people. They must either seize the chance of a better future, or else become a nation which is satisfied in spirit merely to repeat indefinitely the monotonous measures of its own past.